Zyra's front page //// about this website //// site index

The Website Statistics at this site; What's all the fuss?

For years Nedstat provided the stats for this website, and we thank them! Well Done to Nedstat! It was great being able to tell how many people had visited this site and to compare the site's continuously changing fortunes as more or fewer people visited the site. But then, in 2005, Nedstat was taken over by Webstats4U. Initially this appeared to be ok, and although there were minor browser compatibility issues and a different colour scheme, all seemed mostly well.

We have always tolerated the copious silly adverts at our stats provider's site. It's their site, so if they want to put up various random banners advertising the types of companies who still think splat-advertising is a good idea, then that's OK! Good luck to them!

What we won't put up with is pop-ups at our own site! Curious as it may seem, if you put a JavaScript website statistics counter on your site, your stats provider can stuff annoying pop-ups in your visitor's face! That won't do. So, if pop-ups continue, we will remove that counter from the site!

I shouldn't need to explain why pop-ups are such an annoying nuisance, and there is a already a page explaining how to get rid of annoying pop-ups! What's more intriguing cognitively is WHY a statistics measuring company should decide to intrude on the site. It is akin to a local shop doing a stint of flyposting on your house windows! (Notice that we don't mind them advertising in their own shop window, but it becomes a problem if they cross the line and put adverts up on webspace which is not their territory!).

Another point worth mentioning is that the money earnt from splat-advertising such as pop-ups, spam e-mail campaigns, etc, is surprisingly small. You might assume that the blood-money for annoying a person and vexing them and putting them to the trouble of having to close the irrelevant window would be at least 30 cents, but, odd as it may seem, it's often as low as 30 cents per THOUSAND annoying pop-ups. Also see a cautionary tale about the sending of spam. (see, it's ineffective as well as annoying).

What's to be done about it: First, a friendly message was sent to Webstats4U pointing out the problem and asking that the pop-ups be stopped. It's a reasonable request. Would your neighbours mind refraining from chucking stuff over the fence? As there was no reply and no change in the behaviour, (and incidentally a very slow loading flash animation was also added), the next part of the procedure begins:

We'll phase-out the Webstats4U website statistics counter. It is not worth spoiling the good public relations which this site has. Pop-ups are unwelcome at the best of times, and are entirely unacceptable when invading someone else's website.

The "phasing out" is best done sensibly over a period, so there is some cross-over period to calibrate the new stats. As soon as we're sure there is continuity of accurate measuring of the stats we will actually get rid of the Webstats4U counter. Current estimates suggest this will be within a few weeks.

Of course this could be avoided if Webstats4U kept their advertising on their own side of the fence. It was ok when it was Nedstat.